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Archive for November 10th, 2011
U.S. to seek new Keystone route, delaying approval
Posted by Reuters: Arshad Mohammed and Timothy Gardner on November 10th, 2011
Reuters: The United States said on Thursday it will study a new route for the Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, delaying any final approval beyond the U.S. 2012 election and sparing U.S. President Barack Obama a politically risky decision during an election year.
The decision was a victory for environmental groups, who say producing oil sands crude emits large amounts of greenhouse gases. It was a blow to TransCanada Corp, which planned to build and operate the conduit.
The State Department...
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A struggle for power
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 10th, 2011
Nature: When a few hundred demonstrators, mostly from indigenous communities, temporarily occupied the construction site of the Belo Monte dam on Brazil's Xingu River early on 27 October, workers laid down their tools. But the Brazilian government did not back down from its stance that this hydroelectric project on a tributary of the Amazon -- expected to be among the world's largest, with a capacity of 11,000 megawatts, when completed in 2015 -- is essential to meeting the energy needs of a booming economy....
Bangladeshi Women on the Brink
Posted by Inter Press Service: Naimul Haq on November 10th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Char Nongolia village is a basket case when it comes to climate change impacts such as increasing salinity, frequent cyclones, tidal surges, erratic rainfall and extended droughts.
Yet, the 40,000 people of this village, sitting on a delta that drains the sub-continent’s major river systems, have endured the creeping devastation of their homeland in southeastern Bangaldesh with no help from anywhere.
There is no drinking water supply, no land to grow food crops on, no healthcare facility, no...
Climate change to bring more floods: World Bank
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 10th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Climate change will bring more floods and extreme weather to Southeast Asia, a World Bank official said Thursday on a visit to the region, where hundreds have died in severe inundation.
"What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls and we believe that is caused by climate change. And we should expect this to increase, sadly," Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change, told reporters in the Vietnamese...
Storm packing snow, hurricane-force winds batters Alaska coast; villages brace for sea surge
Posted by Associated Press,: None Given on November 10th, 2011
Associated Press,: Packing hurricane-force winds, an Alaskan storm of “epic proportions” slammed into coastal communities, sending some residents fleeing to higher ground as it tore roofs from homes and knocked out power. The strongest storm to hit the state in four decades carried with it heavy snows and rains. The precipitation sent water levels rising late Wednesday night in Nome, causing flooding in low-lying areas, the National Weather Service said. “It’s barely beginning to wind down along the coast,” Stephen...
Rhino subspecies vanishing from the wild
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 10th, 2011
Associated Press: The Western Black Rhino of Africa has been declared officially extinct, and two other subspecies of rhinoceros are close to meeting the same fate, a leading conservation group said Thursday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature said a recent reassessment of the Western Black Rhino had led it to declare the species extinct, adding that the Northern White Rhino of central Africa is now "possibly extinct" in the wild and the Javan Rhino is "probably extinct" in Vietnam, after poachers...
IUCN red list 2011 – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 10th, 2011
Guardian: The latest update of the IUCN 'red list' of threatened species illustrates the efforts undertaken by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to expand the number and diversity of species assessed, improving the quality of information in order to build up a better picture of the state of biodiversity
Sea level rising in Delaware
Posted by WDEL: Jim Hilgen on November 10th, 2011
WDEL: Delaware's Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee is educating residents on the possible impacts of increasing sea levels.
WDEL's Jim Hilgen reports.
Click here to listen
The advisory committee is working on a report on the potential impact of rising sea levels in the state, and will be making recommendations to offset those effects based on various sea level rise scenarios.
The latest data shows the sea level in Delaware is rising about 3.5 millimeters a year.
DNREC's Susan Love says those...